


Carry On

by FrenchRoast



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2019-05-23 19:01:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14940042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchRoast/pseuds/FrenchRoast
Summary: What if Rachel had survived?





	1. (Rachel)

**Author's Note:**

> The seeds of this started with my short fic "For the Birds" as I did extensive background thinking about the "what if Rachel had survived" scenario. I have a definite end in mind for this fic, but also probably some spinoffs/sequel fics for when I'm done writing it. I’ve got about ten chapters planned, but it's going to end up being at least a few more than that.
> 
> I'm planning to post a chapter every other week or so.
> 
> Also, the inspiration for the title comes from Olivia Holt's song "Carry On", which is the most Rachel thing like, ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZysBzkqYA68

I wondered…

Something poked into my side. I opened my eyes. I was wedged between part of a Hork-Bajir head and a leopard’s torso. The blade from the Hork-Bajir was what I felt in my side. My head spun as I shifted and tried to look around.

I was surrounded by carnage. Hork-Bajir limbs, various animal parts and carcasses, in a tiny room with white, metallic walls. Well, white save for the smears and spatters of blood. Was this the afterlife? Trapped in a room full of my destruction?

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the headless body of a snake.

Tom.

I hadn’t wanted to kill him, not Tom himself. But his Yeerk? Yeah, that I didn’t regret. Not even if this room of horrors was my final destination. 

I hoped Jake had what he needed to end the war. I hoped the others made it out okay. That everyone else who’d been made a Controller would get their lives back. My death was worth it, for that.

Then, faintly, I heard voices and the sound of a door opening. Two Controllers walked in, lugging the body of a lioness. “This is the last one,” I heard one of them say with a groan. I closed my eyes, still not sure if I was really dead or not. 

“Good. Iniss 455 wants us bound for the homeworld as soon as we jettison the casualties.”

“Iniss 455’s calling the shots now?”

“Someone has to, and she’s got the highest rank now. Unless you count Efflit 1318. He hasn’t got the rank, but he killed the Animorph filth over there.”  That got my attention. So Efflit 1318 was the one with the polar bear morph, but not in charge. And everyone thought I was dead.

Was I dead? I didn’t feel dead. That Hork-Bajir blade in my side was starting to hurt. Do you feel things when you’re dead?

“I guess. Come on, let’s get Temrash 349 in here. At least he’s not going to be in charge.”

The second Controller chuckled. “I never understood why he was picked for second-in-command. I guess now we’ll all be jockeying for his spot,” she said with a sigh. I could hear them as they heaved the lioness into the room, which I now realized had to be the ship’s airlock.

“Not me. I just want to go to the homeworld. I’ve never even seen it.”

“You haven’t missed much, Temrash 838. Come on, let’s get the okay to seal this off and empty it so we can get away from here before the Andalite scum arrives.” They walked out, and I heard the door shut behind them. 

I was alive. I was sure of it now. Somehow, I was still alive. I had the most wicked headache I’d ever had, but I could move, and I wasn’t floating out of my body watching everything from above or anything. I started to try and wriggle free from where I was stuck under the leopard’s bloodied midsection.

Goddamn Ellimist and his fucked up mind games. He’d let me think I was dead. Why? So he’d have someone to listen to his crazy life story? To make me appreciate life? Or just to fuck with me and the other Animorphs? Had there been some loophole he’d been able to exploit that he couldn’t tell me about, or was it just dumb luck the blow to my head hadn’t killed me? Had demorphing so I could say goodbye to Tobias neutralized the venom Tom had pumped into my grizzly bear morph? Why hadn’t the Ellimist just told me I wasn’t dead? 

Not that I wasn’t relieved to be alive, now that I’d decided I must be alive. I was definitely happy to not be dead. 

Of course, now I had a new problem: no way would I survive the vacuum of space when they emptied this airlock. I needed to morph, now. Something that could hold to the walls. Probably insect. Not fly...flea? No. More indestructible. 

Wait. Duh. Cockroach. 

I stopped trying to free myself from the pile of slaughter, and focused. My head was pounding, but that would go away once I morphed.

My skin crisped up and turned brown, like I’d spent way, way too much time in a tanning booth. The cockroach’s exoskeleton, on a human body...I highly doubted this was a good look for me. Didn’t care. Then the shrinking began. I wasn’t too worried about getting crushed, but I still writhed my way out from under the leopard and away from the Hork-Bajir’s blade as I had more space. Extra legs splooted out of my midsection, then my arms and legs shifted and stiffened to match. My ears splooted into antennae, which was a new sensation; usually those just sprouted from our foreheads when we did this morph. My guts and bones twisted and churned as they changed inside, and my senses shifted to the cockroach versions of themselves. 

After another minute or so, I was fully cockroach. I zoomed away from the bodies and towards the nearest wall, looking for anything I could hold on to or wedge myself against that would keep me from being sucked out when they emptied the airlock. After a few minutes of frantic scampering up and down and across the walls, I found a control panel to crawl into, which seemed like the best option.  I had no way to know how much time was passing, but the Controllers had sounded like they were in a hurry. 

As I waited, I had a little time to think about what had happened. And I realized that the others definitely thought I was dead, too. I had no idea how long I’d been out--had it been a day? A few hours? Minutes? I knew I could work it out once I got out of the airlock. However long it had been, I needed to contact the others. They needed to know I was still alive. I needed to know what had happened after I was knocked out. 

And these Yeerks would soon know I intended to complete my mission. 


	2. (Rachel)

It wasn’t long before I could again hear the voices of the Controllers who came to empty the airlock. They must’ve opened the door to peer in or something. 

“She’s bitten off more than she can chew. That host body of hers might be scary, but Efflit’s morph can take it. Hell, my morph could take it.” It was hard to tell with cockroach senses, but I was pretty sure it was one of the same controllers from before. 

“Uh huh,” another said noncommittally. This voice was very familiar, but it sounded different from the other controller who’d lugged the lioness in. Where had I heard that voice before?

“You weren’t there. You didn’t see that battle. Iniss 455 stayed on the edges. She doesn’t want to fight.”

“Let’s just empty the airlock already. I don’t want to stick around this planet any longer than we have to. The Andalites are almost here.”

I heard a hiss as something opened and air began to escape, and then...silence. You expect noise when a bunch of bodies and limbs are being sucked out of an airlock, but that’s not how space works. There was only silence and decreasing pressure and then cold; if I hadn’t wedged myself well into that control panel, I’d have been swept from the airlock like everything else. If I hadn’t been in a morph with a strong exoskeleton, the change in pressure would’ve killed me pretty quickly. 

After a few very long, cold seconds, the pressure returned to normal and I could hear the door open. They were checking to make sure everything was clear. Now was my chance to escape. 

I ZOOMED out of the panel and down the wall as fast as my cockroach butt could go. ZOOMED past two pairs of feet, over the airlock door’s threshold, and into a hallway. I’d been in morph maybe 30 minutes. I needed to find somewhere to demorph, but I had some time. I wished I had a better mental map of the Blade ship’s layout, but I’d gone in there in flea morph. Just based on the length of the hall I was going down, I figured I had to be at one of the wing ends, to the left or right of the bridge. I was pretty sure living quarters were in between the wings, so I couldn’t be far from a bunk or something. 

I needed somewhere to lay low. To plan my next move.

As I clung to the edges of the hallway, I thought about what I knew already. There had been four complete bodies in the airlock with me--the leopard, the Hork-Bajir, Tom (well, the two halves of Tom), and the lioness the two Controllers had tossed in there. There were also a lot of limbs and animal parts, but now that I thought about it, the sum total of those parts didn’t really equal entire other bodies; they’d been demorphing and remorphing as I fought them, so some of those limbs were just...extra. 

Yeah. 

How many Yeerks were left on this ship? 

There were the two who had brought the lioness in. Plus the other two they talked about, Iniss whatever and the guy with the polar bear morph. And maybe another one, if I was hearing the voices correctly when they came to empty the airlock. Probably that was it. Five Yeerks left, out of nine. Nine was already a lot of Yeerks for one Blade ship, so probably there weren’t any others. At least three of them were human Controllers. If the Yeerk in charge now had a “scary host”, that probably meant Hork-Bajir Controller. Which left Polar Bear Yeerk to account for. I couldn’t remember if they were in a human body or a Hork-Bajir body, but I could figure that out.

I’d taken out four when it was me versus eight or nine. I could take out another five. Especially if I could get at them one on one, or even one on two. And I wasn’t about to forget that they could morph; I’d already learned that lesson the hard way. But I had the better repertoire of morphs, and I knew how to use all of them better than anyone else on this ship. I was the better fighter. It was why Jake picked me. Okay, not the only reason why I was the right choice, but it was part of it. And I was going to get back to the others. Back home.

But for the moment, I needed to get out of this cockroach body.

Behind me, I could hear the two Controllers coming out of the airlock. I debated whether I should try to hitch a ride and hope they went somewhere other than the bridge. Then I noticed a tiny crack in the wall just ahead of me. A door?

I bolted for it.

It led to a tiny room full of blinking lights. Some kind of control room, I guessed. Probably a good place to demorph, as long as no one was planning on coming in there. I waited to hear the footsteps of the Controllers. One set of feet passed. The other set stopped. Opened the door.

“Could’ve sworn…” a woman’s voice trailed off. A very familiar voice. 

Why did I know that voice? I was sure now that it wasn’t one of the first two Controllers who’d put the lioness in the airlock, but beyond that...

The Controller closed the door without saying any more.  Maybe once I was in a more normal body I’d be able to identify who it was. I started to demorph, but stopped. I couldn’t stay human; if I was going to get around the ship and figure out my way back to Earth, I needed to morph something else. But what would fit in on the Blade ship?


	3. (Marco)

It’s crazy how you can look forward to something for years and when it finally happens, even when it’s still as big and huge a moment as you knew it would be, you can’t really enjoy it.

That’s how the end of the war felt. It was amazing, and world-changing, but without Rachel there, our joy was all hollowed out. How could we celebrate when we’d lost _Rachel_ , of all people? Our insane warrior princess who would walk through a tornado and still have perfect hair? How was it she was the one of us who didn’t make it?

At the same time, I kinda felt like crap being so upset over one person when so many others had died. We’d lost all of the auxiliary Animorphs, and most of Doubleday’s troops. Several of the free Hork-Bajir, including Jara Hamee, the first free Hork-Bajir. We mourned their deaths too, but if I was completely honest, they just didn’t hit me the same way Rachel’s death had. Not that their deaths were any less important; but I didn’t know them like I knew Rachel. She had saved my butt, and Jake’s, and Ax’s, and all of us, so many times and vice versa. I’d honestly just never considered she wouldn’t make it through with the rest of us, and I wasn’t even her best friend or her cousin.

I couldn’t even begin to fathom what Tobias was going through.

He’d quietly observed Ax’s challenge, but once that was settled, he retreated into his hawk. I think he’d held out just long enough to make sure Ax-man was going to be okay. It wasn’t exactly a surprise when he took off in the middle of our big Show and Tell on the Washington Mall. I know Tobias isn’t one to want pity, but damn, the guy can never catch a break, even with the end of the war.

So many people had lost everything--their homes, their families. A lot of innocent people had payed an almost unbelievable price, but Tobias had lost all of that and more. So I felt stupid that Rachel’s death had rocked me as much as it had. Who was I to be so upset? Mom was back from the dead, I wasn’t going to have to fight this stupid war anymore, and I was pretty sure I was about to be majorly rich and famous.

Everything I wanted.

It still sucked.

But hey, I could hold it together, you know? I had practice none of the others really had; when you think you’ve lost a parent, you get a lot experience dealing with grief. You get a first hand look at how grief changes people, how it shows up in different ways. I could already see it happening in the first hours after Rachel’s death: Tobias shutting down and flying off. Cassie, distracting herself with the fates of former controllers, both human and alien. Jake, trying to think about anything other than what he’d just ordered while simultaneously convincing himself he’d made the right call, the best call he could with the information he had, and focusing on the logistics of the Yeerk surrender. Admittedly, Ax was harder to read, but as much as he loved his new ship, he was throwing himself into assessing it with more gusto than seemed normal for him.

We all had our distractions. Ax’s distraction was just a lot more fun than everyone else’s.

As we flew in his shiny new liaison ship from Washington D.C. back home, what I really began to worry about was what would happen when we got there. It had been almost a full day since we’d left our camp in the Hork-Bajir valley. Our parents and Rachel’s sisters had stayed there with the Hork-Bajir too young to fight.

We had no idea how much they knew of what had happened; radio didn’t reach that far out, and Jake had refused to let Ax set up the satellite TV he’d previously watched in his scoop out of fear it could somehow be traced by the Yeerks. Phones at the time weren’t exactly what they are today, either. And at Toby’s request, the Hork-Bajir who’d been on the Pool ship were being shuttled down to a spot a half day’s walk from the valley. She didn’t want anyone who didn’t already know where the valley was to learn its location before she and Cassie had some assurances about their future. Tobias was god-knows-where; he hadn’t returned before we left D.C. but there was no way he’d beat us back there...if he was even planning to return.

When we touched down, the camp looked deserted. A look of panic swept across Jake’s face.

“They’re just hiding like we planned, Jake. They haven’t seen this ship before. They don’t know who’s inside,” Cassie reminded him.

<I hope they would recognize the Andalite aesthetic of this ship. The sleek lines and the pleasing way it curves are nothing like a Bug fighter,> Ax stated. He was barely containing his pride at this point, and I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t have minded getting my own nifty spaceship along with a title bump.

“My mom might,” I pointed out.  “But the others? It’s not like Hork-Bajir are spaceship enthusiasts. Maybe if this thing was made out of tree bark…”

“Don’t worry, they’ll show up once they see it’s us and it’s safe.”

Jake nodded. “Let’s hurry up then. Don’t want them to be scared any longer than they have to be.” He led the way out, followed by me, Cassie, and lastly Ax. It felt really weird to show up without Tobias or Rachel. As glad as I was that the worst was over, it felt wrong, yelling out that we’d won when we’d lost so much. Especially as our parents began coming out of the woodwork along with the smaller Hork-Bajir. Everyone was jubilant. Cassie ran to her parents and they wrapped her up in hugs. I ran to mine and got the same joyous hugging. There were small Hork-Bajir jumping up and down, making happy _huff huff_ noises. It was a real “end of the Return of the Jedi” kind of moment, minus the hokey music. It was nice for the couple of minutes the moment lasted.

Jake and Ax just kind of stood in front of the ship as Loren and Rachel’s mom and sisters made their way over. Loren peered up at Fast-Courier. “Are Rachel and Tobias still on the ship?”

“No, Tobias flew off when we were in D.C. He...I think he needed some time to himself. We’ll go back and look for him if he doesn’t show up in a few days.”

Jordan and Sara didn’t catch the non-mention of Rachel, but Naomi noticed. “And Rachel? Where’s my daughter? Did she stay in D.C., too?”

Jake shook his head. You could tell he wanted to look at the ground, but he didn’t. He looked directly at Rachel’s mom. “I...there’s no good way to say--”

Naomi stared straight at him, her face hard. “No,” she said faintly. “No.” She shook her head, not wanting to hear the inevitable.

“Rachel didn’t make it,” Jake said.

Naomi screamed. It was a terrible, raw sound. Anguish, and rage, and regret, all rolled into one horrible howl. She sunk to the ground, clutching at Sara and Jordan in grief.

“But..but I thought we won,” Sara asked, bewildered by the concept of winning the war and losing her sister at the same time. She looked from her mom to her cousin to the rest of us, then back at her mom again. She was the same age I’d been when I thought my mom had died. I kinda knew where she was coming from. It wasn’t a fun place. “What happened?”

Jordan just went silent, clutching back at her mother. Stoic. I could see it in her eyes--she already knew she would step into Rachel’s shoes now. Be the big sister. Handle her mother’s grief and Sara’s and her own, all at the same time.

<She died a warrior’s death,> Ax began.

It was maybe not the best way to start.

“She was a CHILD, not a WARRIOR!” Naomi shrieked, standing back up. “How are the rest of you here and she’s not? How did she die? Who killed her? I’ll kill them myself!” You could almost see Rachel’s darker side in her mother’s rage, even as Jordan clung fiercely to her, holding her back.

“She sacrificed herself to take down Tom, Aunt Naomi.”

Naomi’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You sent her after your own brother?!”

“It was the only way,” Jake said quietly. He looked like he was going to cry.  “I’m sorry.”

At this point, my mom gave me a hug, then ran off towards the makeshift cabins we’d all been living in. I looked up at my dad, who gave me a shrug. He had no idea what she was up to, either. The rest of us walked back over to the others. Cassie’s parents stood next to Naomi, I guess in solidarity. Cassie and I stood next to Jake.

“So Tom killed her?” Jordan finally spoke up to ask.

“No, she killed Tom,” Jake clarified. “Another yeerk killed her on the bridge of Tom’s Blade ship. They had a polar bear morph.”

Naomi took some deep breaths, trying to calm herself. Jordan’s question seemed to have reminded her that she still had two daughters to take care of. “Did she...how bad was it?”

“It was very quick,” Cassie told her. “A blow to the head.”

Rachel’s mother nodded. She was a little more subdued now, with Cassie’s mom squeezing her hand tightly. “And is it safe for everyone to go home now?”

“I think so,” Jake said, relieved to change the subject even slightly. “The Andalites rounded up the remaining Yeerks with access to ships, and they’re being held on the Pool ship until Ax’s four Escafil devices arrive. The government’s imposed curfews and Doubleday’s in charge of rounding up the last of the Controllers on the ground, so there shouldn’t be anyone coming after us anymore.”

“And assuming our homes are still, you know...there,” I pointed out. “The Yeerks did a lot of damage.”

“Marco makes a good point. It might be best to stay here until Toby’s people return, since there’s no one else to watch the kid Hork-Bajir. But a couple of us can fly over later and make sure things are okay to go back when we want to.”

“Yeah,” Cassie agreed. “It’s unlikely the fighting made it all the way out to my house. As long as it’s still there, anyone who needs to can stay with us.” Michelle and Walter nodded their assent to this offer. “And the President said FEMA and the Red Cross would be setting up shelters.”

<Additionally, there are five sleeping pods on my ship that anyone is welcome to stay in until I am given official orders. As they are designed for Andalites, they are quite large by human standards,> Ax offered.

I glanced up at my dad. I could tell he was itching to get inside that ship, and we still needed to figure out what to do about finding Tobias, among other things. Not to mention, I seriously needed a nap. Jake and Cassie looked similarly exhausted. “Hey, Ax-man, why don’t you give people who want it a tour of your new ship while the rest of us handle some, uh, logistics?”

<That is an excellent idea, Marco.>

As Ax and my dad headed into the ship, my mom came running back from the cabins. She had an envelope in her hands. She stopped in front of Naomi and held it out.

“Rachel told me to give you this.”

“YOU KNEW?” Naomi was all rage again. She snatched the letter from my mom’s hands and began to tear it open even as my mother explained.

“I didn’t know what it was, Naomi! She just asked me to keep it, and said I’d know if you needed it. I think this has to be what she meant.”

Looking around, I wasn’t the only one surprised that Rachel had given my mom what had to be a goodbye note. Essentially a suicide letter, considering the mission. The rest of us watched, silent, as Rachel’s mom read the letter. It wasn’t very long, but it seemed to help.

When she finished reading, Naomi looked at my mom. “Thank you for keeping this, Eva.” Then she turned to Jake. “I know you had to do it. And she’s right--she probably was the right person. But I don’t know that I can ever forgive you for asking her to do it.”

Jake bit his lip. “I understand.”


	4. (Rachel)

As the last of my morph’s blades popped and hardened into being ( _ SWICK, SWICK, SWICK _ went the three forehead blades that belonged to Jara Hamee), I started to psych myself up for what I needed to do. Get control of the ship. Fly back home. That meant killing the rest of the Yeerks. And I had to be smart about it.

I did not want another buffalo/polar bear battle. 

“Okay,” I muttered to myself. “Let’s do it.”

I swung open the door to the small control room I’d demorphed and remorphed in. Casually stepped out into the hallway. About two seconds later, a guy of medium build with a head of copper hair came walking down the hallway. 

“I thought you were on the bridge, Iniss four-five-five?”

“Guess again, Yeerk,” I said, pulling my mouth back into a Hork-Bajir smile as I cracked my wrist blades across his skull. He dropped like a sack of potatoes. I wasn’t positive I’d killed him, but if he survived, he wasn’t going to wake up for a few hours. I grabbed him and shoved his body into the control room I’d just been hiding in. Maybe I could starve the Yeerk out of his host body if he made it. I’d kill him if I had to, but I was going to need someone to help me pilot the ship back. I could check back on him before he woke up.

If he woke up.

“One down, four more to go,” I noted. I continued down the hall until I came to an opening to another hallway. This one had several doors. Sleeping quarters? More control rooms? 

Time to find out. 

The first door was a storage closet full to the brim with food. Hilariously, amongst the MRE-style rations there was a case of Oreos and at least a dozen 12-packs of Dr. Pepper. Also bags upon bags of gummy bears. Someone had a sweet tooth. I briefly remembered that my grandma gave Tom gummy bears during the holidays. When she was still alive, she’d always made sure each of us had our favorite candy on Hanukkah along with the traditional gelt and jelly donuts. Those gummy bears were for Tom. 

I closed the door. I could give myself a sugar coma once I’d safely dispatched the other Yeerks. 

“Door number two,” I uttered under my breath. This time, a room of four empty bunks clearly meant for humans. Some clothes and duffel bags were scattered in a few places, as though the Yeerks had hastily dropped their stuff off before running to the bridge. Doors three and four were basically the same story, though door three was designed for three Hork-Bajir instead of four humans. I pawed through some of the belongings in the one of the human bunks, but it was just clothes. Nothing useful. I really needed to find a watch, too; I figured I’d been morphed for fifteen minutes or so, but that was just a guess.  I missed Ax’s time-keeping abilities. 

There were two doors left in the hallway before it turned toward the bridge. I guessed most of the Yeerks had to be on the bridge, or I’d have run into more than just the one. It would be better if I could pick them off one by one, but that would take time. A lot of morphing. And every minute, we were getting further away from Earth. How far away was the Yeerk home world? I had no idea. 

I thought about skipping the next two doors. I could go to the bridge in grizzly morph again. It wouldn’t be completely stupid. I would catch them by surprise. If I could dispatch two of them before they morphed, I could probably handle the other two. 

_ Sure, Rachel.  _ I told myself.  _ As long as the two that survive don’t morph polar bear on your ass again. _

I lost my chance to decide when door number six opened a few feet away and out stepped...Mrs. Chapman?! Her hair had been cropped short, but other than that, she looked just like the woman whose home I had been to countless times when I was younger. I knew Mr. Chapman was okay; he was safely held hostage with General Doubleday. 

Well, safe as long as Erek had done what Jake had asked. 

But I hadn’t stopped to think about what had happened with Mrs. Chapman. Or where Melissa was in all of this. 

Mrs. Chapman saw me and her eyes narrowed. “Iniss four-five-five. What can I do for you?”

That was the second time someone had called me Iniss four-five-five. Had to be the Yeerk with the Hork-Bajir morph. And I got the feeling Iniss and Ms. Chapman weren’t exactly friends. 

“Just, uh, stretching my  _ garashfit _ legs. Change of scenery.” I hoped she bought it. I didn’t want to kill my friend’s mom, but to avoid that, I was going to have to figure out a new plan fast.

Mrs. Chapman stared back. “I thought your host was female? How did you get a third blade?” Oh, great. She ran a beauty salon. Of course it’s my luck she’d notice the top of my head. 

“It’s a morph,” I said honestly. 

“Why would you...wait. Hork-Bajir can’t morph.”

“I can.”

She laughed, and realized now that the familiar voice I’d heard earlier was hers. “No wonder you volunteered to work with Tom! He gave you the power, didn’t he?”

And that’s when I decided to take a gamble.

“No, he didn’t, Mrs. Chapman. Elfangor did.”


	5. (Rachel)

“Animorph!” Mrs. Chapman screeched. Immediately her hands flew to the Dracon beam at her waist, and she fired at me before darting back into the room she’d just exited. It must have been on a low setting, because it hit me but didn’t seem to do much damage. I ran after her, but the door was secured. Even my blades couldn’t cut through the door. Seconds later, some kind of ship intercom switched on.

“The Animorph survived and is on the ship in Hork-Bajir morph!” her voice rang out through the Blade ship.

There went the element of surprise. And as I looked down at the deep blue-green puddle of Hork-Bajir blood at my feet, I realized I’d been hit harder than I’d thought. I swore. I needed to demorph.

I rushed into one of the empty bunk rooms, bolted it, and started to demorph, concentrating on hands, fingers, toes so I could morph quickly into something with paws, claws, and teeth. I’m not Cassie, though; morphing takes time, and this was no exception. I had only just finished demorphing when I heard pounding on the door, and then I could hear yelling outside the door. I worried they’d get in; for all I knew they could flip a switch on the bridge and the door would open while I was still mid-morph. Then I heard the sizzle of metal being heated. Were they were cutting their way through?!

 _Faster faster faster,_ I willed my body as I started to sprout brown fur and my teeth began to sharpen. I needed jaws and claws and size, but I was staying stubbornly small as the morph progressed. My bones were bending, reshaping, but not growing yet. My chin and nose jutted forward as my grizzly snout formed. My blond hair was only partly gone as my fur came in; I looked like a grotesque Furby pulled from a storm drain. My bear paws still had human toes, and now I could feel the heat coming from the door as the frame began to buckle. They were close to getting it open. A hole began to appear, and a wild volley of Dracon beams began to shoot into the room. I had to lurch to the side to get out of the way.

Finally, finally I could feel the grizzly’s muscles bubble up and ripple across my frame, the bulk reassuring as I felt the raw power welling up in conjunction with the bear’s instincts. I was calm. Queen of the forest.

Two seconds later, I barrelled through what was left of the door, smashing one human controller against the wall as another in a lioness morph jumped out of my path. I could see Mrs. Chapman running the other direction toward the bridge. The human controller’s head had a chunk of the molten door embedded into it. He wouldn’t be a problem.

 _Two down, three to go_ , I thought to myself. I hoped my count was right. It would suck if there were a couple more Controllers on here that I hadn't accounted for. And I would still have to make sure that red-haired Controller was dead or contained once this fight was over.

I started after Mrs. Chapman and the bridge, but the lioness had other plans.

Then again, so did I. I spun around just as she leapt toward me, and clotheslined her with my massive arm. She yowled in surprise as I knocked her to the floor.

<You’re supposed to be dead, Animorph filth!> the Yeerk raged as she flipped back to her feet.

<And yet here I am, kicking your parasitic ass,> I shot back as I scraped my claws over the lioness’s back, shredding it into fleshy ribbons. She turned and swatted back; I wasn’t fast enough to avoid her, but she only got one paw to scrape my leg. It stung, but that was it. Then she clamped onto the other leg with her jaws, and I roared in anger.

We weren’t even close to evenly matched, though. I shook her off, then reared back and dealt her a blow like the polar bear had given me hours (days?) earlier. She fell, hard. I hit her again. Again. Again. I had to stop her before I went to the bridge to take care of Mrs. Chapman and the other Yeerk. She lay still. Again.

Again. Again.

Couldn’t let her come back like I had.

I stopped when I got a lion’s tooth embedded into my right paw. As I grabbed the tooth with my jaws and yanked it from my paw, I looked down at the floor where I’d been punching and slashing. The lioness didn’t have a head anymore, just a mass of bloodied pulp and fur with a torn up body extending from the spot where her head should’ve been.

...yeah, no one was coming back from that.


	6. (Tobias)

If I’d had legs capable of it, I’d have been kicking myself with them. _Great thinking, Tobias_. _Fly away from your ride home because you’re feeling sorry for yourself. Like you’re the only one who lost someone._

It had been too much, though. Recounting our victory. Our great success. All the while, Rachel’s body was somewhere in a Yeerk Blade ship, lifeless.

I can handle a lot. Have handled a lot. But this? I couldn’t deal. This juxtaposition of joy and grief was worse than anything Taylor’s torture box had ever done to me.

I had to let the hawk take over.

The hawk did not enjoy the spectacle that surrounded it, the people and the lights and the noise, so he flew away. The hawk Tobias was okay, soaring above everything. DC had some great thermals. Lots of rats, too. The boy Tobias knew there was a joke about politicians somewhere in there, but it didn’t matter because he was just a hawk now. All that mattered in that moment was sky.

But eventually, the hawk grew tired, found a perch in a tree overlooking Arlington, and slept. Soon the boy surfaced again, even though he fought it.

I demorphed in the tree so I could cry. Eventually, I looked up and saw where I was. Noticed the graves, and realized Rachel could end up here like all the other soldiers. Even without a body, they would give her a marker, like Marco’s mom had when they thought her body had been lost at sea. Would there be a memorial for everyone who’d died in this war? Would the stone marking Rachel’s grave blend into the rows upon rows of all the other soldiers?

I couldn’t just be a hawk and forget everything. I couldn’t risk forgetting _her_. I had to remember, for her. Even if it hurt.

I needed to get back to the others, I realized. I didn’t want to see Jake. I probably never wanted to see or talk to Jake ever again. But Ax would need us. I was his _shorm_. Technically, he and I were family, and I owed him whatever help I could give him.

Now I just needed to figure out how to get back to the others. Theoretically I could fly, but it was thousands of miles and that would take days, maybe weeks. Or there was the stowaway option. Hop a plane headed back home. Also not ideal, but we’d done that, back in the first year of the war, so it was a possibility.

Then another idea came to me.

 

\-------

 

The President of the United States leaned back in his chair, exhausted after hours on the phone with major world leaders and heads of state, not to mention the joint chiefs, NATO, the UN, and the IMF. He’d known this would be the toughest job of his life, but aliens and teenagers who could turn into animals showing up on the Capitol Mall with spaceships was not exactly what he’d anticipated when he’d won the election six months ago. Animorphs. A bunch of children had saved humanity from enslavement and annihilation while he and his opponent had been bickering over taxes and campaign finance. Hell of a way to kick off a new millennium. Jesus Christ.

He needed a drink. Or three.

He heard a rapping on the window of the Oval Office. He turned unthinkingly towards the sound to see what was causing it. He expected a low tree branch hitting the window. Instead, it was a bird. A hawk.

The hell was a hawk doing rapping on…

“Margaret!” the President shouted into the intercom on his desk. “Get me a photo from the Mall today! One with that bird that was there! And you should probably send Agent Whittaker in.” Before the president had lifted his finger from the intercom button, Agent Whittaker swept into the room. “Sir?”

“Hey, Todd. I think we have a visitor,” he said to Agent Whittaker, motioning at the hawk, now perched just outside the window. “That’s one of the Animorphs, right?”

Margaret walked in with a stack of glossy prints: photos taken by the White House photographer. “I was just about to mail these to Archives, sir.” She handed him the photos, and resting on the top was one that included the hawk before he’d flown off. The president thanked and dismissed her.

“That does look like the same bird, sir,” Todd said as he consulted the photos Margaret brought in. “But I’m not an ornithologist.”

“Or-nil-what-a-jist?”

<Um, not to be rude, Mr. President, but I can hear both of you. My name is Tobias, and I’m one of the Animorphs.>

The president and Todd exchanged a look. “You heard that, right? It was that bird.”

“Yes sir.”

<I hate to bother you, but I have a favor to ask. If it’s not too much trouble.>

 

\-----------

 

Three hours later, I was awkwardly hopping down the stepladder of a stealth bomber now parked on the tarmac of Doubleday’s current base of operations. Red-tails weren’t meant for stepladders, and there was no salvaging my dignity, not when I looked like a chicken doing an imitation of a Mexican jumping bean, so I didn’t even try. At least Majors Jackson and Johnson did a good job of not laughing at my utter ridiculousness.

Once I got my bearings and found a perch at eye level, I noticed that General Doubleday was waiting for us. The sun was only just beginning to rise in the distance, and I wondered if the man had slept at all in the past 72 hours. “Tobias, right?” he asked.

<Um, yes sir.>

“I just want to thank your people for coming through like you promised. And to offer my condolences on your losses. Your Animorphs down here fought bravely. It was an honor to serve with them.” He paused, obviously weighted down by the losses. “I know you’ve been in as many or more battles than I have, son, but that doesn’t make a victory that costs this much sting any less. I’m sure you want to get back to your people, so I won’t keep you.”

<Er...thank you, General,> I said from my perch. What else was there to say? The man had lost over half of his people, but he was still thanking us. We spoke a little more about the aftermath and how FEMA and the Red Cross would be arriving soon. After agreeing to keep in touch, I took off back into familiar, quiet skies, deciding to survey the damage that had been done to our city and the surrounding areas for a bit before veering towards the Hork-Bajir valley. Everything near where the Yeerk Pool had been was a wreck, save for a few pockets of normalcy where homes or stores had randomly survived the destruction. The subdivisions further out fared better, but they were largely abandoned. It was almost a ghost town, I realized as made my way around. That was probably a good thing, as long as it meant people got out before the real fighting had begun.

Somehow, I eventually found myself sitting on the tree outside Rachel’s window. It was closed. She would never open it for me again.

But...wait. The window _was_ opening. Someone was inside Rachel’s room.

“I thought you might end up here,” a knowing voice said.


	7. (Rachel)

I rammed myself at the doors to the bridge and let out a frustrated roar. The remaining Yeerks had sealed the opening shut, but I was pretty sure I could get in there if I tried hard enough. The seal probably wasn’t airtight.  I could try sneaking in as an insect.

But that wouldn’t work, I quickly realized.  They’d kill me before I finished demorphing. If I’d been human at the time, I’d have let out a string of curses, but grizzlies aren’t all that articulate. How the hell was I going to get in there?

I paced in front of the doors, on all fours. This was not going the way I wanted. The last thing I wanted was to land on the Yeerk homeworld and have to fight an army of Gedds. Or worse, be vaporised by an Andalite ship before the Blade ship even made it to the homeworld.

What I really wanted was to be home. Maybe go flying with Tobias, maybe go to the mall then meet up with the others. Not the one we all used to go to--that mall was destroyed with the Yeerk pool explosion--but some mall, somewhere. It was America, there were plenty of malls. I could find another mall. It didn’t really matter which one or where, as long as it had department stores and a Cinnabon. I’d buy Ax his weight in cinnamon buns, and we could all forget the war for a few minutes.

 _Can’t do any of that if you can’t get this ship turned around,_ I reminded myself. _Can’t go home if you can’t get on the bridge and handle the rest of these Yeerks._ I needed an in. But all the Yeerks were sealed off on the bridge.

No. Not all of them.

I lumbered back down the hall I’d been exploring before Mrs. Chapman had made everything go haywire. The small control room. The red-headed Controller! I really hoped he was still alive. In my hurry, rather than open the door to the control room, I ripped it off.

The small control room was empty, save for a small smear of red on the floor where that Controller’s head had been. Either he’d recovered a lot faster than I’d expected, or one of the other Yeerks had found him and dragged him out earlier. I slammed a furry paw against a panel on the wall in anger, and a bunch of lights in the display next to the panel went out.

Far off, I heard shouts coming from the bridge.

Hmm. I studied the panel more closely. Contrary to popular belief, grizzlies’ eyesight is about as good as a human’s, just a bit more sensitive to light; I had no trouble reading everything on the panel vision-wise. Language-wise, however...I was expecting English; that’s what most of the Yeerk-built tech we’d come across over the last 3 years had. Apparently no one had bothered to update the control panel in the Visser’s personal Blade ship during that entire time. I had no idea what I was looking at, but whatever it was, it was unreadable. I couldn’t tell if my punch had taken out the landing gear or the oxygen scrubbers or the toilets.

What I did know what that it had pissed off the Yeerks on the bridge, and that was something I was okay with. I punched the panel again; this time, only a couple of lights went off. I heard a clicking mechanism in the wall, but couldn’t identify what it was. The shouts down the hall were louder now.

Then I heard footsteps. Or was it..yes, I saw as I peered out of the control room. Hooves. The cape buffalo. Over a thousand pounds of instinct running down the hallway of an alien spaceship. Towards me. I looked back at the display, wondering if there was something I could punch that would stop him.

Funny thing about spaceships, though. They have pretty smooth floors. It’s hard for hooves to get traction on smooth floors. And it’s hard to stop if you can’t get traction. I turned from the display panel to look out of the control room just in time to see the cape buffalo lose its footing and eat the floor.

Marco would’ve loved it, but I didn’t have time to dwell on the hilarity. I flung myself out of the room towards the cape buffalo before he could get back up. This was my shot to take him out, and I couldn’t throw it away. I went for his neck. The hide there is thick, up to a couple of inches--but a grizzly’s teeth and claws are thicker. As I bit down, the buffalo stood up and tried to shake me off. For several moments, we were locked together, my jaws clutching tightly to his neck as I tried to bite through even as my body was being thrashed. But as he continued to thrash, my teeth began to lose their grip. I knew if I let go and fell under him, I was a goner, and I knew my teeth weren’t going to hold out much longer. I needed to control how the fall happened. So I let go right as he shook me in the direction of the bridge.

The surprise loss of my weight against him as I was flung down the hallway made him lose his footing again. As he began to stand again, I had the best idea I’d had all day: I ran towards the doors to the bridge, roaring as I went. I reached it just as he began to charge down the corridor, building up steam as he came closer. Even as a grizzly, there was no way I could counter his size or speed.

So when he got close enough that I could see the rage in his eyes, I stepped to the side.

If I’d waited a second longer, I’d have been impaled or worse. Instead, the cape buffalo hit with almost cartoonish force, his thousand-plus pounds buckling the doors to the bridge. The Blade Ship’s bridge was built to handle a lot of things, but a Cape Buffalo charge was not one of them. I didn’t stop to see how the Cape Buffalo had handled the hit; I forced myself through the opening in the doors. I was in.

It wasn’t clear who was in charge, there on the bridge. I was facing Mrs. Chapman, a Hork-Bajir, and a polar bear. Plus the Cape Buffalo. Innis whats-her-number was the Hork-Bajir and was supposed to be in charge, that much I’d pieced together. The polar bear was the biggest immediate threat. Did Mrs. Chapman not have the morphing power? Was she relying on the others to protect her? Or did she stupidly think she was safe because I used to be best friends with her daughter?

<If you’re counting on our history to save you, Mrs. Chapman, you must have missed seeing what happened to my cousin earlier.>

She smiled. It was not a nice smile, not like the happy one she’d had upon seeing Melissa get Fluffer McKitty for her birthday, or like the proud one she made when her daughter stuck a landing at the end of a difficult routine on the balance beam. This was not a good smile. It was cold. Unfeeling. Whatever control she’d once been able to wrest from the Yeerk, it was gone now, because I couldn’t see anything left of the woman I once knew. The face staring back at me was pure Yeerk.

“Yes, you’re quite the killer now, aren’t you, Rachel? Who would’ve thought, this entire time, one of the Animorphs who gave the Visser such grief was friends with my host’s pitiable daughter? Or at least you used to be friends with her. Because it’s been a long, long time since you and Melissa did anything together, hasn’t it? Do you even know what happened to her? Do you know if she’s still alive?”

I said nothing in response. I watched the others. The Hork-Bajir was edging away slowly, almost imperceptibly. I remembered what I’d overheard in cockroach morph: _“You didn’t see that battle. Iniss 455 stayed on the edges. She doesn’t want to fight.”_

“I’d tell you what happened to Melissa, but I honestly don’t know. Don’t really care, either. But I know you humans care about that sort of thing.” Somehow, her smile grew even sharper. “Well, normal, non-cousin-killing humans, at least.”

She thought she was baiting me.

And I’m not insensitive. I have feelings. I cared about Melissa. I wanted her to be okay. I knew she probably wasn’t, not after three years with Yeerks for parents. But I also knew that there was nothing in this moment that I could do for Melissa, or anyone else for that matter. Nothing except get home. And to do that, it was time to do what I did best.

With a roar, I ran towards the polar bear.


	8. (Cassie)

“Come on in,” I told Tobias as he perched out there on the tree.

<How’d you know I’d be here and not in D.C.?>

“Well, Marco and Ax were going to go look for you there, but before they could leave, we got word there was a stealth bomber carrying an unusual passenger over this way. And there aren’t a lot of redtails soaring over the remains of our city. It wasn’t hard to figure out where you would end up.”

<That trip was supposed to be a secret!> Tobias was indignant even as he fluttered over to the windowsill.

“Not from General Doubleday. He thought we’d want to know, and we did. We were worried about you, Tobias.”

<Yeah, well, the war’s over so you don’t exactly need to worry about me anymore, right? I’m a bird. I’ll survive. Unless I get mobbed by crows or something. And if I let that happen to me, I deserve what I get.>

“Tobias. You know we still need you. Toby and Ax especially, but the rest of us, too.” I looked around the room. Gestured at Rachel’s stuff. The place had been ransacked, probably by the Yeerks looking for clues to where we had retreated to. Most of her things were still there, just a lot messier than usual. “I know losing her is worse for you. I know how much Rachel meant to you. But she meant a lot to me, too, and I need someone else who understands that the way you do. I don’t want losing her to mean we lose you, too.”

Tobias stared back at me with his familiar fierce hawk eyes.

<I wasn’t going to leave right away. I was going to check in with the free Hork-Bajir, at least,> he conceded. <I just...it’s so much. I can’t deal with everyone being happy about defeating the Yeerks, not when…> he trailed off.

“Yeah. It’s weird. It sucks. This whole time, I thought when--or really, if--we defeated them, I was going to do all of these things. We were going to be free to live our lives again. Finish school. College, a job. It never even occurred to me that Rachel might not be here for any of that,” I said. “It’s not that I didn’t know this war was dangerous. I just thought...”

<That Rachel would be the last of us to go. I know. I know.> Tobias hopped from the windowsill to Rachel’s desk. <I always thought she’d have to get over one of us. And I never worried about that, because she’s Rachel. She’s tough. She could’ve handled this. I don’t know if I can.>

I sat down on the mattress of Rachel’s bed, which had been stripped of its bedclothes and sat slightly askew on the bedframe. “There’s going to be a memorial in a few days. You should be there, Tobias.”

<A memorial?>

“There’s no...we don’t have her body, but the President wants to honor her sacrifice.”

<He didn’t mention anything about it to me.>

“To be fair, Tobias, I don’t think he was expecting you to knock on his window with a request to be flown across the country. You might’ve surprised him with that.”

<Not his biggest shock of the day, though.>

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “I guess the whole ‘aliens are real and a bunch of teenagers just saved humanity’s collective ass by turning into animals’ thing probably topped it, huh?” It was good to laugh, even if it was just from the absurdity of what we’d known to be fact for so long.

<Imagine if they knew everything we know. We didn’t even include the Chee or the Ellimist,> Tobias said, somewhat ominous. <Andalites and Yeerks are only scratching the surface.>

“Oh god, someone’s probably going to have to tell them about the Nartec. Right?”

<Yeah. You should definitely tell them we discovered Atlantis in our abundant spare time.>

“I can see it now: ‘Bee tee dubs, Mr. President, Atlantis was real but we might have destroyed it because the Atlanteans wanted to grind us into DNA sausage and it was the only way to save ourselves and future shipwreck survivors. Bonus, we found out Marco’s into fish girls.’ “

<Come on, Marco’s into all girls. Fish or not.>

“True,” I nodded. “Maybe we don’t bring up the Nartec right away. We should probably have a meeting or something and get all of this straight.”

<Probably.> Tobias looked back out the window. <So. A memorial service.>

“Yeah.”

<I can’t be around Jake right now. Or the others. It’s too...you know. But let me know when the memorial is. I’m not promising I’ll come. I don’t know if I can. But I want to know.>

“Okay. I understand. Is there anything...anything you want done?”

<Make sure it’s somewhere outside the city. Rachel was a force of nature. She shouldn’t be remembered hemmed in by a bunch of buildings and traffic.>

I agreed. “How do you want me to let you know?”

<Ax’s scoop is still intact. Leave a note or something if you can’t find me.> With that, he hopped back to the windowsill, then jumped out, flapping to gain altitude. I’d honestly not been sure what Tobias’s reaction would be when he saw me there, or if he’d even talk to me, so the conversation alone was already a win. And he’d promised to check in with Ax and the free Hork-Bajir. They might be better able to keep him from completely disappearing on us.

I hoped he’d come to the memorial. At least now there was a chance of it.


	9. Rachel

The Yeerks hadn’t expected me to go after the polar bear first, and it upset their plans to kill me. But Mrs. Chapman’s Yeerk was pretty good at adapting to changes in plan. When I didn’t make myself an easy close-range target for a Dracon beam by trying to kill her first, she changed tactics and shot the Hork-Bajir Controller. I didn’t see it happen, but as I turned from the polar bear with half of his(her?) throat resting in my jaws, I saw the Hork-Bajir Controller fall, and Mrs. Chapman putting a small Dracon beam into her jacket pocket. 

“Looks like it’s just you and me, Rachel. And maybe Temrash 838, if he wakes up,” Mrs. Chapman said with a laugh. “What are we going to do now?”

<We?> I dropped the polar bear’s throat. It made a bloody “spleeeht” sound as it hit the floor. <There’s no ‘we’ in this equation, Mrs. Chapman. Not unless you’re willing to let me starve the Yeerk out of you so Melissa can have her mom back.>

“Surely we can come to an agreement. It’s not like I want to go back to the Homeworld.”

I stared at her, not sure what to say. I wasn’t about to strike some kind of deal with her. That’s not what I’d come onto this ship to do. Mrs. Chapman, the real Mrs. Chapman, she’d probably welcome death if it meant no longer being enslaved as a Controller. 

But I also was going to have a hell of a time navigating this ship back to Earth. And I didn’t  _ want _ to kill Melissa’s mom. She was a real person, buried deep down in wherever the Yeerk had shoved her. Maybe a deal wouldn’t be the worst thing. Again I wished I wasn’t here on my own. Cassie or Marco would be better at seeing the path that would get me home with Melissa’s mom alive and free. The best I could do for the moment was maybe buy some time to figure out what to do next. 

<So what do you want?> I asked finally. 

I could see her visibly relax. Just a hair, but it was something. Maybe I could get an opening if she felt more comfortable. “I want to be free of this war. I’m tired of Andalites, sick of weapons and worrying the next Visser in charge is going to kill me on a whim. It’s why I did everything I could to be transferred to your cousin’s oversight. He wasn’t...wasteful.”

<And you aren’t?> Had she already forgotten the Hork-Bajir Controller she’d killed moments ago? I hadn’t. I was glad she’d taken them out for me, but the fact that she had so casually disposed of one of her fellow Yeerks didn’t give her a lot of room to bemoan waste. 

“I’m strategic. So was Tom. The Visser, though…” she shrugged. “Well, you’ve seen how he treats other Yeerks while the Council of Thirteen looks the other way.” 

I didn’t need to answer her. We both knew how expendable other Yeerks and their hosts were to the Visser. She went on. “I wish I could’ve convinced Iniss 226 to come with me, but he was too close to the Visser, and Tom was his rival. I didn’t even try. I’d thought about incapacitating him and bringing him along, but your people got there before I did. You Animorphs nearly killed him so many times using him as a source for your information, so I imagine they’ve finally finished the job now. I’ll miss him, but so be it. There are a lot of things I want, but I’m more pragmatic than some Yeerks.” Again with the smile. That evil, heartless smile.

<So what are you proposing?>

“We were going to found a new Yeerk society. That was Tom’s grand goal--find another world with hosts we could bend to our will, and have a structure that wasn’t completely authoritarian.”

I blinked. If bears could laugh, I would’ve positively guffawed. <I’m not helping you start Yeerktopia, Mrs. Chapman. If that’s what you wa-->

“That was Tom’s dream, not mine. I always planned to let him do the hard work, then step in at the right time and take over. But now I don’t have to. I can get what I want, and not have to answer to anyone else.”

<You can’t even morph.>

That smile remained on her face. “Not yet. But soon. Temrash!” she yelled suddenly. Behind me, I heard the click of a weapon. A gun. I turned. 

That red-headed Controller I’d let live was aiming a double-barreled shotgun at me. I wanted to yell  _ Seriously? You seriously think a shotgun is going to slow a  _ grizzly  _ down? _

Mrs. Chapman started to laugh. “I think you should demorph, dear. That’s not a regular shotgun. Temrash is a genius with weapons modding.”

“Part Shredder, part Dracon beam. Twice the power of both. Completely hidden by low tech Earth casing,” the Controller said proudly. Was there a tremor of nervousness in his voice? I noticed his grip on the weapon was tight, white-knuckled. 

I looked at him. Looked at Mrs. Chapman. 

Looked at the gun. It didn’t  _ look _ like anything more than a shotgun. What if this was all a bluff? Part of me said there was no way they’d dare. That if I didn’t back down they’d kill me for real this time. The other part of me thought it was just the kind of thing a pair of overconfident Yeerks would try. 

But all of me knew what the Yeerks never seemed to understand: I never back down. 


	10. Rachel

I dove toward Temrash and his shotgun. Well, since I was in grizzly morph, “dove” might be a bit too poetic a term. Lunged might be a better word for it. Doesn’t matter--no way was I about to demorph with any kind of weapon pointed at me. I’m reckless and brave, not stupid.

The Controller fired. I roared.

The shot--a regular shotgun blast--mostly missed me. It’s hard to aim when you have several hundred pounds of wild animal coming at you, even at point blank range. My left shoulder was grazed by the shot; I’d survived so much worse I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t in the middle of the second (third? fourth?) battle for my life in a day.

Instead of hitting me, the bulk of the impact went to Mrs. Chapman’s torso. The impact of my grizzly’s bulk went to Temrash eight-three-whatever. I stood up and roared at him again, but it wasn’t necessary. He was little more than a smear on the bridge’s floor. He really hadn’t had a chance. Human body vs. grizzly body--we all know who’s gonna win every time.

I turned to Mrs. Chapman, who was lying on the floor. The shotgun blast was bad, and she was starting to bleed out. I lumbered over to her, and started to lift her to assess the damage. I felt a bulge against my arm as I lifted her head, and something wet. My first thought was that she was bleeding from her head, too, but then the bulge moved down, and kept moving until it dropped to the floor. It was the Yeerk who had controlled her for so long, trying to escape like a rat abandoning a sinking ship.

Not after all of this. No way. I watched the Yeerk squirming away.

I speared it with four claws, and ripped them through that disgusting grey slug, shredding it. Then I began to demorph after I laid her back onto the floor.

<She’s gone,> I told Mrs. Chapman. <You’re free.>

Mrs. Chapman--the real Mrs. Chapman--opened her eyes, and a smile spread over her face. A smile I recognized from years ago, not the evil one I’d seen when she was infested.

She took in a ragged breath. “I’m so sorry,” she started, then coughed. Red drops splattered against her hand. The shot must have punctured her lungs in addition to the other damage I could see seeping from her abdomen. “I know I’m going to die--”

“No, we’ll get the others. We’ll go home. You just have to hold on, Mrs. Chapman.”

She shook her head. “Rachel, I need you to tell Hedrick and Melissa I’m sorry. That I love them. By the time I realized what I’d actually signed up for, it was too late. They have to know. They have to know that I fought back every day.” She stopped to breathe. More blood was brimming in her mouth.

“You’re going to tell them yourself,” I lied.

“Stop. I don’t have the time, Rachel. Your cousin--not the Yeerk, the real Tom--when they found out what you were, he knew what could happen. And he wanted it. We all wanted it. Being a Controller--it’s not living. Even the willing hosts were slaves. And few of us stayed willing for very long.”

“How...when did you--”

“Our feeding cycles coincided, so sometimes we were caged together, once we were unwilling hosts. Tom said he’d rather you or Jake or one of the others killed him. That at least then his Yeerk would be stopped. He couldn’t live with what he’d been part of, even as a slave.”

I heard what she was saying, but in the moment, I wasn’t completely processing it. That would come later.

“Tell Jake Tom forgave him. We promised each other, if we were ever free--” she gasped for air. There was a gurgling sound in her throat as more blood came. I tried to help her sit up so the blood couldn’t rise as easily.

“Tell Melissa I love her so much. I was stupid. Weak. I had no idea--no ide--” Mrs. Chapman started coughing violently. Blood was seeping from her chest, pooling around her body. Splattering out with each cough. Pain clouded her eyes as she strained to say more. “Tell Melissa--” she coughed again, uncontrollably now. She was choking on her own blood.

“I’ll tell them. I’ll tell her,” I said, over and over as my friend’s mom convulsed in my arms.

Soon, she was still.

And then I was alone on a Yeerk ship barreling far, far away from home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I haven't been updating as regularly as I originally did. I had some major work issues that seriously impacted parts of my life in negative ways. The cause of those issues has been removed, so look forward to more frequent updates.


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